Faculty Book: Michio Kaku

Michio Kaku

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel(Bantam Books / Random House, 2008)

One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and the atomic bomb were beyond the realm of physical possibility. In Physics of the Impossible, Michio Kaku, a renowned physicist and cofounder of string field theory, explores to what extent the technologies and devices of science fiction that are deemed equally impossible today might well become commonplace in the future. In a compelling, thought-provoking, and entertaining narrative, he explains how the science of optics and electromagnetism may one day enable us to bend light around an object; how ramjet rockets, laser sails, antimatter engines, and nanorockets may one day take us to the nearby stars; how telepathy and psychokinesis may one day be possible; and why a time machine is apparently consistent with the known laws of quantum physics. Michio Kaku is a professor of physics at City College.